The Hollywood Effect by Marin Harlock Read Free Book Online Page A

I’d run over one of the paparazzi and that they’d try to sue me.  
    “Just ignore them,” Liam said as we backed through the swarm.  
    “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You’re used to this. I didn’t sign up for this - I’m not interesting. I’m nobody.”  
    “You’re not nobody.”  
    “To them I am,” I said. We cleared the crowd and their flashing cameras.  
    “They’re the definition of no-one,” Liam said dismissively.  
    He stared stonily ahead as we drove up the street.  
    “Should I give them the grand tour of Tarang?” I asked, glancing in my rearview mirror. A handful of cars had started following us. Liam laughed.  
    “It’ll be the highlight of their day. Hey, who knows, we could be doing wonders for the Tarang tourism trade,” Liam said.  
    “What tourism trade?”  
    “Exactly.”
    “You probably already are. They’ve got to be staying somewhere,” I said. “They’ve probably booked the hotel and motel and the B&B right out.”  
    “The biggest event since the last local wedding.”
    It didn’t take us long to get to the main street. I was careful to drive like a nanna and stick to the speed limits. Didn’t want to give them anything else to write about that my students could hold over me.  
    I led my train of vehicles down the wide, tree-lined main street. The rose bushes were looking particularly lovely at the moment. Maybe one of the paparazzi moonlighted as a garden photographer. Another thing that I liked about living in a country town was the parking. I hadn’t had to learn to parallel park or reverse park or anything like that until I’d moved to the city. The bays were long and plentiful in Tarang. All you had to do was drive right in. If there wasn’t a park in front of the shop you wanted, you’d just drive around the block and more often than not there would be a spot when you came back. My ex-boyfriend Evan - a complete city boy if there ever was one - would laugh at me doing laps in Melbourne trying to find an easy park.  
    Today was a good day. One empty spot right in front of the florist. I parked and stopped the car. The paparazzi started to slow down, but a large B-double truck with a load full of cattle was bearing down on them, and they seemed to decide it was safer to keep going. I watched out of the corner of my eye as they drove around to the other side of the avenue and set up with their camera’s pointing our way.  
    “Do you want to stay in the car?” I asked as I undid my seatbelt and fished around the backseat for my handbag.  
    “Nah,” Liam said and got out of the car. “Secret’s out, no point hiding anymore. I’ll just be as boring as possible. Buying flowers and going to the cemetery, not sure how they can sensationalise that. Come on.”  
    I followed him into the florist, and tried to resist glancing over my shoulder at the waiting camera’s. I had the mad urge to wave at them. It didn’t take us long to pick out two bunches of flowers - one a nice purple and pink bunch for mum, the other a slightly more masculine looking arrangement, although I’m not quite sure how you can make a bunch of flowers masculine.  
    We paid for the flowers, and both held a bunch as we walked back to the car. The false calm was too good to be true.  
    “Miss Pike! Miss Pike!” a familiar voice called out. I turned, slowly and with a small amount of dread. Marnie and some of her friends were standing there, with varying degrees of bulging eyes and open mouths.  
    “Er… hi, girls,” I said. “Some of my students,” I murmured to Liam on the side.  
    “Hi, Miss,” said two of the girls at the same time. None of them were looking at me though. They were all staring at Liam. I wasn’t quite sure what to do.  
    Marnie quickly glanced at me, with something like awe in her face.  
    “Miss, can we… can we please get his autograph? Pretty please?”  
    I half laughed. “It’s not up to me. Ask him!” I waved my hand